Stark gun sales spike on fear of ban

Like gun shops across the United States, Dobransky Firearms has seen “elevated” sales in the weeks since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed. The gunman, Adam Lanza, also killed his mother and himself.

Business is good at Dobransky Firearms, but that doesn’t mean owner Julie Dobransky and her husband, Dave, feel good about it, or the direction their industry may be heading.

Like gun shops across the United States, Dobransky Firearms has seen “elevated” sales in the weeks since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed. The gunman, Adam Lanza, also killed his mother and himself.

Most of the sales have been of high-capacity rifles, similar to those used in the massacre, the Dobranskys say. Other shops, such as Crystal Park Firearms and Tactical, also have reported a boost in sales.

The spike in sales is reflected in a 34 percent increase in firearm background checks in Ohio in 2012, a record year, according to the FBI. There were 102,531 background checks in December alone, a jump of 64 percent from the same period in 2011.

GUN SALES SPIKE

On Thursday, the small shop on Wales Avenue NW in Jackson Township was buzzing with customers buying ammunition, picking up orders and undergoing instant background checks.

“The thing in Connecticut was a tragedy,” Julie Dobransky said. “It bothers us that (business) is being driven by the loss of 20 innocent children.”

She and her husband are quick to say that people are buying more because they fear that some of the high-capacity firearms won’t be available for long, not because they feel their security is at risk.

“It was escalated when Obama was referring to gun control,” Dobransky said. “The public was panicked. All of our high-capacity rifles were sold.”

Matt Fonte, owner of Crystal Park Firearms and Tactical on 30th Street NW in Canton, said there’s been a spike in sales at his store, too, making some firearms rather scarce.

“It’s been difficult to get things in for people,” he said. “The most highly sought-after item right now is the AR-15.”

In Ohio, like other states, automatic weapons are illegal. The state defines automatic weapons as firearms that can fire a succession of cartridges with a single pull of the trigger, or any semiautomatic firearm that can fire more than 31 cartridges without reloading. The AR-15, the semi-automatic consumer version of the M-16, holds 30 cartridges. It is made by Colt. However, several variations of the firearm exist, including the Bushmaster XM-15 that Lanza used in the shootings.

Fonte believes the AR-15 will turn to “gold” for current owners if future sales of it are banned — similar to what happened when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was enacted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton. The ban on semiautomatic firearms expired in 2004.

BACKGROUND CHECKS

Vice President Joe Biden is expected to give his recommendations on gun control to President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

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Biden met with gun safety groups and gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, on Thursday to discuss school safety in the wake of the Newtown shootings. In addition to restrictions on some high-capacity magazines, Biden talked Thursday about including mental health professionals in the conversation and making gun background checks universal.

Currently, instant background checks are conducted at gun shops and prevent fugitives, felons, drug addicts, anyone deemed “mentally defective” by a court or committed to a mental institution, or anyone under a protective order or convicted of domestic abuse from buying a firearm. Private sales and sales at gun shows would be included if lawmakers close the background check loophole.

Early last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., announced plans to introduce the Ammunition Background Check of 2013, which would ban ammunition sales to that same group of people. It also would require law enforcement to track ammunition sales, especially large quantities, and ban the sale of armor piercing bullets and explosive ammunition.

Toby Hoover, of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, said she agrees the tighter background checks should be the first priority. However, she said, gun control should not stop with restrictions on high-capacity magazines.

“We need to look at all of it realistically,” she said. “The system has been broken for a long time. Whatever we come up with right now is not going to be a fix-all. ... Eventually, we have to deal with that other number: the 32 people killed every day with all kinds of guns.”

GUNS ‘NOT THE PROBLEM’

The coalition has been holding forums across the state. It is also urging supporters to make 20 phone calls to elected leaders in the runup to the president’s State of the Union address Feb. 12. Hoover said the 20 calls will be in honor of each child killed at Sandy Hook.

To the contrary, Dobransky Firearms is offering free conceal-carry classes to teachers and school administrators. The Buckeye Firearms Association already has had more than 1,000 teachers apply statewide for a similar program, Armed Teacher Training.

The Dobranskys don’t blame the mass shootings on guns, and they reject that their clientele is made up of “gun nuts.” Instead, they blame a defective culture where killing is glorified in video games. Dave Dobransky also said that people close to Adam Lanza should have recognized “warning signs.”

“There was a hole in the system,” he said. “Was it a legal hole? No, it was a moral hole.”

Fonte says some are taking advantage of the tragedy to forward a political agenda.

“It’s very difficult to say (what’s going to happen),” he said. “A lot of other media outlets and the politicians as well are capitalizing and taking advantage of this situation. They’re using it for political gain.

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“They’re not focusing on what the problem is — criminals and the criminally insane,” he added. “Guns are an inanimate object. ...They are not the problem.”